On February 6, 2014, Mozilla will host a Gigabit Community Kickoff Event at the 4th Floor of the Library (in partnership with the National Science Foundation, Department of Education, and US Ignite), making available $150,000 to area nonprofits to support development and experimentation of education and workforce development-focused uses of emerging technologies.

As an IT professional heavily involved with the nonprofit community in Chattanooga, I have agreed to participate in this kickoff event by facilitating some of the sessions and helping educators, nonprofits and technologists like yourself conceptualize ideas for projects (websites and internet applications) that could take advantage of high-speed internet for the good of the community. We are also helping to promote the event.

If you are an educator, nonprofit organization, community activist, or a technologist, please consider joining us on Thursday, February 6, at 11:00am.

Until then, please begin to think about some of your organization’s greatest needs and how internet applications that rely on high-speed internet could meet those needs. Again, your project will ultimately need to address an educational or workforce development problem, and should rely on Chattanooga’s gigabit internet.

If you’re unsure what this could look like, then simply begin by writing down your organization’s pain points. Folks including myself will be available throughout the day to help mesh your needs with concrete ideas and examples of websites or internet applications that could help meet those needs.

Mozilla’s mission is to build a web where people know more, do more and do better. The goal of the Fund is to:

Build a network of educators, designers, catalysts and technologists building prototypes of projects that leverage gigabit technology as learning platforms

Teach both the production and application of tools designed to deepen the learning of its users

Shape the environments for what is possible and needed in the emerging gigabit economy

To RSVP and learn more about this event, please visit this Eventbrite registration page: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/chattanooga-gigabit-community-kickoff-event-lets-build-the-gigabit-future-registration-5926633721